After Hours

Michel Delpech. Wight is Wight

And speaking of French hippies, here's Michel Delpech with the definitive French hippie anthem from 1969. I apologize for the thrashed sound and the lack of synch in the last half, but this is the only copy on the entire YouTubes. And my lord, it is about the cheesiest and most ridiculous thing ever. Yes, you're hearing that correctly, the chorus is in English. It goes like this:

Wight is white, Dylan is Dylan
Wight is white, viva Donovan
French, French, French, etc.

OK, this song was recorded 40 years ago, so here's a partial explanation: Wight is the Isle of Wight, where there was this big music festival beginning in 1969. Dylan is of course the Great Zim, finest balladeer in all the land. Once again, the Isle of Wight is white - and why not? And finally there are wishes long life to Donovan, British purveyor of psychedelia. And you are also hearing correctly, he does sing, "Hippie, hip pee-pee." You can listen to it yourself. This song's melody is very nice. Unfortunately, it's just so relentlessly naive and stupid that it serves as a warning to future generations. It's just so incredible that hippies believed they could save the world by smoking lots of weed and getting muddy. I can see their reasoning, though: for them, it was a choice between weed/mud and bombing the holy hell out of Vietnam, so they opted for the former. But that wasn't really a solution to any of the world's problems; it was merely an escape from them. The world eventually caught up with them. That's why the lifespan of most communes was quite short. Anyhow, Michel thought being a hippie was really grand and he wrote a song about it. I'm betting that he kind of regrets doing that.